Sunday, December 23, 2018

Remember all the pictures of oil derricks and caribou in Alaska with the petroleum industry stating the herds were never harmed by their drilling.

THEY  LIED!

As a comparison to the commitment a country can make to it's future generations; Sweden has committed to building a wind farm that will generate electricity equivalent to two nuclear power plants. Their commitment will be realized 9 years ahead of their goal of 2030. What country would you rather, one that lies about the security of the future for the children or one that actually does something to ensure the children's future?

December 8, 2018
By Linda Givetash

It may be December (click here) but almost 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle there’s still not enough snow for reindeer to begin their annual migration.

Sweden’s indigenous Sami people have herded the animals for generations, with the corral usually happening over a two-week period in November.

But this year the tradition has been postponed because temperatures keep fluctuating above and below the freezing mark.

“Something is really wrong with nature,” said Niila Inga, 37, who lives in Sweden’s northernmost town of Kiruna. “I can't ask my father what to do now because he hasn’t seen this; it hasn’t happened during his lifetime.”...

How committed are Americans to the health, happiness and future of their children?

November 27, 2018
By Austin Frakt

...The 1970 amendment to the Clean Air Act (click here) significantly reduced air pollution in certain areas, offering a research opportunity. A study published last year in the Journal of Political Economy looked at the level of pollution experienced by children born in each year between 1969 and 1974, and also their earnings 30 or more years later. The study found that exposure to lower levels of pollution in their birth years led to higher earnings by age 30 and at least $4,300 more over their lifetimes, or $6.5 billion per affected cohort.

Another study, by authors from Northwestern and the University of Florida, examined the test scores of 13,000 children born in Florida between 1994 and 2002, when the E.P.A. cleaned up many Superfund sites.

The children were all in families with one child born before and one after a nearby Superfund site cleanup. That meant one child was exposed, in utero, to a higher level of environmental toxicity than the other. The study found that children conceived within two miles of a Superfund site before it was cleaned up had lower elementary school standardized test scores than the siblings born later. They were also 40 percent more likely to repeat a grade; 6.6 percentage points more likely to be suspended from school; and 10 percentage points more likely to be diagnosed with a cognitive disability.

But it doesn’t take decades to see pollution’s effect. One study of the 39 largest school districts in Texas found that when carbon monoxide levels were higher, children were more likely to be absent from school. Janet Currie, a Princeton economist, was an author of the study....

The natural world welcomes human fitness. The natural world inspires it.

The Swedish national health (click here) monitoring and surveillance system was established in 2004 and includes population based measures of physical activity. 

The National Public Health Survey, entitled “Health on equal terms (HLV)”, is led by the Public Health Agency of Sweden and collects data annually (2). Physical activity measures include duration, intensity, domains (leisure time, transport, work, household), sedentary behaviour in different age groups, and socioeconomic items.

Sweden’s national recommendations on physical activity (3), targeting adults and older adults, are in line with WHO’s Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health (2010) (4), providing examples of how to achieve the recommend amounts of physical activity.

National data on prevalence of physical activity for adults use a cut-off point of at least 3 hours of moderate intensity physical activity per week, or regular exercise. Data from the 2014 HLV survey demonstrate an almost even distribution of recommended physical activity levels among both sexes (67% for males; 65% for females) in adults (aged 16—84 years) (5) (see Table 1)....

Being healthy can have a direct effect on happiness.

21 March 2017
By Katia Hetter

Norwegians (click here) have more reason than ever to celebrate the International Day of Happiness.
After ranking fourth for the last two years, Norway jumped three spots and displaced three-time winner Denmark to take the title of "world's happiest country" for the first time.
Denmark dropped to second place this year, followed by Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and Sweden (which tied for ninth place), according to the latest World Happiness Report, released in March 2017 by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations.
Denmark has won the title three of the four times the report has been issued, while Switzerland has won the title just once.
The United States came in 14th place, dropping one place from last year.
Other superpowers didn't fare better than Northern Europe either....

There is absolutely nothing wrong with loving nature and it's beauty. As a matter of fact, there is a lot right about it.

Protecting (click here) a newly discovered mule deer migration corridor in western Wyoming will be a tremendous yet necessary task, wildlife researchers said....

December 14, 2018
By J. Westin Phillipen

Map (click here) 


Mapped migration corridors for huntable populations of seven big game species in Wyoming: bighorn sheep, elk, moose, mountain goats, mule deer, pronghorn, and white-tailed deer. Source data from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.


Right about now a few thousand mule deer (click here) are moving south through the grass valleys near the bottom of Wyoming’s Wind River Range. They summered in the high alpines near Yellowstone National Park, and as winter comes they’ve traveled 100 miles south, through private and public land, with still 50 miles more to go, across rivers, deserted two-lane highways and busy freeways, noisy natural gas fields, and barbed wire fences. Many of them are bound for a desolate sagebrush basin called the Red Desert, where they will hit a wall in the form of the four-lane Interstate 80. It is the longest land mammal migration in the lower-48 U.S. states, discovered only two years ago.

Since researchers found it, the Red Desert to Hoback mule deer corridor has made the study of land migration suddenly sexy—“very sexy,” Steve Kilpatrick, a field scientist working with the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, told me. Corridor ecology has been around a long time, but only recently has it gained wide interest. This is partly thanks to Hall Sawyer, the research biologist who found the route, and who together with the Wyoming Migration Initiative published a revolutionary study on the path, which included a stunning video shot by a National Geographic photographer. But it’s also owed to what the corridor offered conservationists. “This migration route has been going on for hundreds years,” Kilpatrick said, “and now all at once we can define it.” But that doesn’t mean it’s not in danger....

Sweden's economy is growing without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Statistics Sweden 2018-05-08

In 2017, (click here) greenhouse gas emissions by the Swedish economy amounted to 62.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. The emission level remains largely unchanged from the previous year. In 2014–2017, emissions by the Swedish economy remained largely unchanged. At the same time, Sweden’s economy is growing. In 2017, GDP rose by 2.4 percent compared with the previous year, and by 10.5 percent compared with 2014.

Greenhouse gas emissions by the Swedish economy, and the development of GDP, 2008–2017

Thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents and SEK millions, constant prices 2016 (summed quarters)         
December 17, 2018
By Hillary Rosner

Seeing a caribou wander onto an Idaho highway (click here) is about as likely as watching a UFO land there. The South Selkirk herd—the only remaining caribou herd that roamed the continental United States—has dwindled to just two animals, both female. “Not even Noah could save them,” a Canadian biologist told me. Last spring, scientists declared the herd functionally extinct.

Though that news barely registered with the American public, it was powerful: the imminent disappearance of a large mammal species from the Lower 48. And the Selkirk caribou are only the tip of the melting iceberg. Across a broad swath of Canada and Alaska, caribou populations have been plummeting for decades. The main cause: industrial development in their habitat. Today seeing caribou in their original Canadian range requires luck, patience, and often a helicopter....


Map (click here)

...They are also what scientists call an “indicator species,” one whose own health shows the status of a whole ecosystem. And they’ve become unwitting sentinels, on some level, of life as we know it. The boreal forest, a vast band of spruce, fir, pine, and birch that covers one and a half billion acres of North America, stores roughly a third of the planet’s land-based carbon. It is a crucial source of Earth’s fresh water, and billions of birds from more than 300 species breed within it. The boreal is still the largest unbroken forest on Earth, representing a quarter of all remaining intact forest. But nearly a third of Canada’s boreal has already been carved up or earmarked for industrial use....

...Canada’s woodland caribou, a subspecies, are most at risk. They live in old-growth forests, where they feed largely on lichens that grow on the ground and on trees. The reasons for their decline are not especially complex or mysterious. Cutting down forests wipes out their habitat. Building roads across forests provides easy access for animals that eat them. And because caribou reproduce so slowly, the problem boils down to simple math: Too many are dying, and not enough are surviving to reproduce....

...Research suggests that wolves can travel up to three times faster along roads and trails than they can in unbroken forest....

Pine beetle map (click here)

All to often pine bettle infestation is used to deforest an entire area. The habiat of the Boreal Forest Caribou does not match the infestation estimates. The caribou habitat needs to be assessed by scientists for infestation before a forest is clear cut.

The facts are simple, the pine beetles do not infest healthy treas. A Silvaculturist and a biologist familiar with the pines and caribou need to assess the habitat in question before clear cutting a forest.

The pine bettle is a serious threat to forests, but, it is not like a cold that spreads between individuals without abatement. There are preventive measures that can be employed and selective removal of infected and weakened trees. Preserving the caribou habitat has to come first while logging has to be put in perspective as a measure to end pine beetle infestation.


The age demographics of Sweden are absolutely fascinating. When a person is born they have a full life until they naturally age in their 70s and 80s.

Stop to think about that for just a minute. No shootings killing young people. No crime-ridden slums that are "No Go Zones" to the authorities.

Disease is kept under control. If a Swed becomes ill they receive treatment. End of discussion.

...In 2011, (click here) the most common cancer sites in men were prostate (32.2 percent), skin excluding melanoma (10.8 percent), colon (6.9 percent), lung (6.5 percent) and urinary organs (6.5 percent). In women, the most frequent sites are breast (30.3 percent), skin excluding melanoma (9.1 percent), colon (7.6 percent), lung (6.5 percent) and melanoma (5.9 percent). Despite these rates, recent developments have shown that cancer patients living in Sweden are less likely to die of cancer compared to those living in other European countries. Cancer survival rates in Sweden are 64.7 percent. In northern Europe, the rate is 59.6 percent....

Their health care delivery system is primarily local with county boards to track the area's health and provide for the well being of every Swed. Those on the county health care boards are elected.

Sweden is divided into 290 municipalities (click here) and 20 county councils. Swedish healthcare is decentralised – responsibility lies with the county councils and, in some cases, local councils or municipal governments. This is regulated by the Health and Medical Service Act. The role of the central government is to establish principles and guidelines, and to set the political agenda for health and medical care.

County councils are political bodies whose representatives are elected by county residents every four years on the same day as national general elections. Halland, Skåne and Västra Götaland county councils – as well as Gotland municipality – are called regional councils and have assumed responsibility for regional development from the state....

The North American Reindeer, also known as Caribou, are fighting for their lives.

December 17, 2018
By Irene Galea

The caribou has been with us for millennia, and survived the ice age. 'Now, it’s having a hard time surviving the human age'

A wild caribou roams the tundra near The Meadowbank Gold Mine located in the Nunavut Territory of Canada on Wednesday, March 25, 2009.

Caribou in the Arctic are “having a hard time surviving the human age,” with a new report revealing numbers have dropped by fifty per cent in the last two decades.

According to the 2018 Arctic Report Card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, numbers are down from 4.7 million to around 2.1 million. Some herds have shrunk by 90 per cent. The report was announced at a press conference at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

These findings are disturbing, says Candace Batycki, conservation program director at Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, an organization that protects Canada’s northern habitats.

“This tells me that caribou are at the front lines of environmental change. They’re canaries in the coalmines,” said Batycki. “Twenty years is not a long period of time for an animal that has been with us for millennia, for an animal that survived the ice age. Now, it’s having a hard time surviving the human age.”...

The Arctic has and is taking substantial environmental abuse because it is not near neighborhoods of people, except, the Native Tribes. The fact of the matter is there is exploitation of natural resources such as oil, gas, forests and minerals for that exact same reason.

It is the impact by humans with roads and the side effects of mining and oil drilling on the air and water that is also causing habitat loss. If the caribou or moose are drinking contaminated water, that is never reported until the size of the herds diminish and the bodies are found in the aftermath.

December 11, 2018
By Brian Resnick


Reindeer are perhaps best recognized by their magnificent antlers, the largest of any deer species in proportion to their bodies. They’re also notable for their epic thousand-mile journeys every year in search of food, in herds of 100,000 or more.
And they’re supremely important to the Arctic ecosystem as a source of food and livelihood for local people, and because of their power to reshape vegetation by grazing.
But the populations of reindeer, a.k.a. caribou, near the North Pole have been declining dramatically in recent years. Since the mid-1990s, the size of reindeer and caribou herds has declined by 56 percent.
That’s a drop from an estimated 4.7 million animals to 2.1 million, a loss of 2.6 million.

“Five herds,” out of 22 monitored “in the Alaska-Canada region, have declined more than 90 percent and show no sign of recovery,” according to the latest Arctic Report Card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, out Tuesday. “Some herds have all-time record low populations since reliable record keeping began.”...
5 October 2018

Sweden takes the global battle against climate change seriously. (click here) More than half of Sweden’s national energy supply comes from renewables and a thorough legislation aims at further reducing greenhouse gas emissions....

...The Swedish Environmental Code

Legislation plays an important part in Swedish environmental efforts and an Environmental Code entered into force in 1999.

This legislative framework aims to promote sustainable development that will assure a healthy and sound environment for present and future generations. To achieve this, the code shall be applied so that:

Human health and the environment are protected against damage and detriment, whether caused by pollutants or other impacts

- Valuable natural and cultural environments are protected and preserved

- Biological diversity is preserved

- The use of land, water and the physical environment in general is managed well in the long term in regards to ecological, social, cultural and economic values

- Reuse and recycling, as well as other management of materials, raw materials and energy, are encouraged so that natural cycles are established and maintained.

The Swedish Environmental Code also requires that an environmental impact assessment be carried out before permission can be given for an environmentally hazardous activity. This assessment takes into account the impact on people, animals, soil, water, air, the landscape and the cultural environment.

These pictures are timeless. The one of the river will be part of history of the town someday.

December 23, 2018
By Bob Keyes

Mark Marchesi's "Portland Harbor February 2015." The photographer walked across the Casco Bay Bridge in subzero temperatures to get the photo of the harbor filled with ice "because I might never see it again."

The photographer (click here) Mark Marchesi documents landscapes in transition. He spent four years traveling between Maine and Nova Scotia to take pictures of the Acadia that poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about in his epic tale “Evangeline.” The cultural exodus that Longfellow described in his 1847 poem felt tangible to Marchesi when he began visiting Nova Scotia in 2012, prompting him to tell stories of displacement and loss over generations with photographs of empty landscapes dotted with abandoned communities and homes.

Marchesi’s latest photographic effort feels similar, if less dramatic. Marchesi, who lives in South Portland, has spent more than 20 years photographing in Portland, capturing the city’s most interesting and arresting landscapes in his ongoing “Greater Portland Project.” With his photos, he reveals the soul of the city, showing us the places – but never the people – that link Portlanders across generations with a shared sense of ownership and community. This month, he self-published his second book about the project, “Greater Portland, Volume II.”...

I think Sweden is missing a sub-basement under their subway system.

Perhaps this sort of storm happened rarely in Sweden and there was no need for a sub-basement for the water to enter the city's drainage system.

July 30, 2018
By Leeanna Garfield

When a city experiences a torrential downpour, (click here) it's common for underground subway stations to flood (there's nowhere for the water to go but down).

A train station in downtown Uppsala, Sweden, saw major flooding, due to a heavy storm over the weekend. With flood levels rising knee-deep in some areas, it seemed like it would only be logical to abandon the station until the water drained.

But some residents had a different idea: They turned the train platforms into a massive swimming pool. On Instagram, several people have posted photos of locals relaxing on inflatables, suggesting that there can be plenty of imaginative uses for public spaces — even when they flood.

Tony Svanström, who observed the scene, wrote on Instagram that it wasn't long before security told the floaters to leave. There were reportedly concerns that the water would electrify....

It's Sunday Night

Abir Al-Sahlani is considered one of the most attractive Swedish politicians. (click here)

Abir Al-Sahlani (born 18 May 1976 in Iraq) is a Swedish politician and a past member of the Parliament of Sweden, representing the Centre Party. She lives in Hägersten, Stockholm.

Al-Sahlani studied at the Mid Sweden University (Mittuniversitetet) in Sundsvall. She holds a Master's degree from Stockholm University.

In 2002-2003 she has been a volunteer with Nacka School (Internationella Engelska Skolan) in Stockholm.

In 2004 Al-Sahlani was appointed to the Secretary General of the Iraqi National Democratic Alliance (DNA) position.

In February 2007, she became a member of Sweden's Center Party. Abir Al-Sahlani was on the board of the Center Party's municipal council in Härnösand as the youngest member. At the same time, she worked with homework help for immigrant children with her own funds. Last year at high school, she devoted a lot of time to the work on 5 in the 12th movement in Härnösand, which worked with discrimination issues in connection with Everyone against the Racism campaign. For three years, Abir Al-Sahlani has been working in Iraq with the building of a democratic center, women's seminars, the building of a secular party, the National Democratic Alliance and a youth parliament. In February 2007, Abir Al-Sahlani was hired by the Center Party as a political expert in the Riksdag with responsibility for the Foreign Affairs Committee's committee work.

Al-Sahlani was nominated in the European Parliament elections 2009 as number three on the Center Party's candidate list. In the 2010 parliamentary election, she was in position four on the Center Party's list for the Stockholm municipal constituency, which is why she became a replacement in the Riksdag for the Government Minister Andreas Carlgren. After Carlgren resigned from the government and the Riksdag in September 2011, Al-Sahlani became an ordinary member.

In November 2013, Al-Sahlani was suspected of fraud for several million Swedish krona., but was later acquitted.

12 November 2013

Swedish Centre Party politician Abir Al-Sahlani (click here) has been forced to take a break from parliament after being accused of fraud relating to an Iraqi aid project.

Al-Sahlani, 37, is suspected of fraud in relation to two democracy projects in Iraq run by the Centre Party. The projects, which took place in 2009 and 2010, were funded by state money from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). An estimated 3.2 million kronor ($480,000) of aid money is unaccounted for according to Swedish Radio's Ekot programme.

A statement posted on the Centre Party's website said that Al-Sahlani was taking a "time-out" and added that it was because of "deficiencies in the financial records concerning an aid project in Iraq."

Both Al-Sahlani and her father Abid (click here) handled the aid project in Iraq where they were both born.

The police were notified last year by the Centre Party's international foundation after serious discrepancies were discovered in the projects' final accounts. State prosecutor Staffan Granefeldt at the Swedish Economic Crime Authority has conducted interviews with key people involved with the Iraqi aid effort....

Skolavslutning Lorensberga 4 till 6 13juni 2013 (sveriges nationalsång) (click here for official website of Sweden - thank you)

National Anthem of Sweden

Du gamla, Du fria, Du fjällhöga nord
Du tysta, Du glädjerika sköna!
Jag hälsar Dig, vänaste land uppå jord,
Din sol, Din himmel, Dina ängder gröna.

Thou ancient, Thou free, Thou mountainous north
Thou quiet, Thou joyful [and] fair!
I greet thee, loveliest land upon earth,
Thy sun, Thy sky, Thy climes green.

Du tronar på minnen från fornstora dar,
då ärat Ditt namn flög över jorden.
Jag vet att Du är och förblir vad du var.
Ja, jag vill leva jag vill dö i Norden.

Thou thronest on memories of great olden days,
When honoured Thy name flew across the earth,
I know that Thou art and wilt remain what thou werest,
Yes, I want to live, I want to die in the North.        

I think it is time for those that licensed Matthew Whitaker to review Matthew Whitaker.

As part of its responsibility (click here) to supervise lawyers and in the interest of promoting public confidence in the legal system, the Iowa Supreme Court has procedures for addressing complaints concerning alleged violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Matthew Whitaker needs to have his license reviewed, for many reasons. The deception regarding the DOJ Ethics review is only the beginning. There are people still aggrieved from his involvement in "World Patent Marketing." He was never reviewed by the Iowa ethics board for defrauding customers. The evidence is overwhelming he was involved and even threatened customers unhappy with the company. The entire fiasco of this company was facilitated by his identity as a lawyer. 

My understanding of his continued standing as a lawyer was whitewashed once he joined the DOJ. That also is an issue which needs to be reviewed for corruption. He never should have been at the DOJ as a US Attorney or otherwise.

December 20, 2018

Acting attorney general Matt Whitaker (click here) has consulted with ethics officials at the Justice Department and they have advised him he does not need to recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, a source familiar with the process told CNN.

That is a blatant lie involving a very serious issue regarding the sovereignty and national security of the USA.

December 20, 2018

A senior Justice Department ethics official (click here) concluded acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker should recuse from overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe examining President Trump, but advisers to Whitaker recommended the opposite and he has no plans to step aside, people familiar with the matter said.

Who were the advisers, Giuliani, the man with the poor memory? (click here)

Earlier Thursday, a different official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said ethics officials had advised Whitaker need not step aside, only to retract that description of events hours later.

The advice to stay away from the Mueller probe underscores the high stakes and deep distrust — within Congress and in some corners of the Justice Department — surrounding Whitaker’s appointment as the nation’s top law enforcement official until the Senate votes on the nomination of William P. Barr to take the job....